Page 104 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

Her heart pounded like a triphammer as she took Mr. Finchley’s arm.

He offered his other arm to Jenny. “Straight to the carriage, ladies. No dawdling.”

Helena glanced back at Justin over her shoulder, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking out at the darkened landscape again.

“I didn’t see anything,” Jenny said. “Did you see anything? Did you?”

“Not a thing,” Mr. Finchley replied as he hurried them to the garden gates. “But I’ve known Thornhill too long to ask questions when he gets that look in his eye.

Justin stood, immobile, as Horace Glyde emerged from the stand of trees near Ashburnham Pavilion. He was wearing a dark cloth coat and a low-brimmed felt hat tipped low over his eyes.

“How long have you been following us?” Justin asked. His blood was already boiling, but as he looked at the man who’d hunted Helena and hurt her, a white-hot rage ignited within him. It burned away the raw edges of his reason, leaving nothing behind but a primitive urge for swift and brutal violence.

Glyde regarded him warily. “I’m not following you, guv. It’s Castleton’s niece I’m after.”

Justin advanced on him. “She’s my wife. Did you truly think I’d let you take her?”

Glyde showed no sign of retreating. He was an enormous brute. He’d likely never had to run away from a fight in the whole of his miserable life. “It’s not up to you, is it? It’s the law. Just like the magistrate said in Devon.”

“If your actions are lawful, why are you skulking about Mayfair and Cremorne Gardens? Why don’t you show yourself in the light of day?”

Glyde came forward. He stopped in front of the entrance to the pavilion, only an arm’s length away from Justin. “His lordship don’t want a scandal, sir. You know that.”

“What I know is that you seem to enjoy terrorizing gently bred ladies.”

“It’s nothing personal.”

“It is to me.” Justin’s fists clenched reflexively at his sides. The ominous sound of his knuckles cracking made Glyde cast an uneasy glance downward.

“Easy, guv,” he said. “No need to come to blows. It’s just a job.”

“To hurt and abuse women?”

“Not a woman. A lunatic. You’ve seen the papers. Castleton said—Oomph!” Glyde’s head snapped back on his thick neck as Justin landed a staggering punch square on his jaw.

After that, Glyde abandoned any pretense of civility.

He swung back at Justin, clipping him on the shoulder. Justin nearly lost his footing. Bloody hell. The man had fists the size of boulders. Justin hit him in the face again and then in the stomach. Glyde returned the punches blow for blow.

They grappled with each other, stumbling through the door to the pavilion and clattering past a table of plants.

It wasn’t a proper fight with perfectly executed hits. It was violent, disorganized, and bloody. Glyde split Justin’s lip and opened a cut above his eye. Justin vaguely registered knocking out a few of Glyde’s teeth and nearly strangling the man with his own neckcloth.

But no matter how many punches and blows were exchanged, Glyde kept coming. He was big and brutal and seemingly unstoppable. Facts which only served to further stoke Justin’s rage.

“You can’t win, guv,” Glyde panted, circling around him. “It’s not an even match.”

Justin spat out a mouthful of blood on the pavilion floor. “The hell it isn’t.”

“I’m no scrawny lad who’s taken the queen’s shilling. You can’t thrash me for impudence.”

“Thrash you?” Justin’s voice vibrated with fury. “I’m going to murder you.”

“You?” Glyde snorted. “Not likely.” He lunged forward, seizing Justin in an iron grasp. “I know how you gentlemen fight.”

Justin caught hold of Glyde by the shirt. “Whoever said I was a gentleman?” he asked. And then he slammed the top of his forehead down onto the bridge of Glyde’s nose, shattering it in an audible crunch of cartilage and bone.

Glyde howled in pain as blood spurted from his nostrils. He clutched his face. “You bastard!” he cried. Or something very like it. Justin couldn’t quite make out his words.